


The Book's Keeper

by dreamcatcher (darcangell23)



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Targeted, family curse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 09:38:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcangell23/pseuds/dreamcatcher
Summary: The book, a longstanding Anderson family tradition secret has fallen into Blaine's care, putting a huge target on his back. But will he be able to keep this from his new best friend and possible crush Kurt Hummel without putting anyone he loves in danger?





	The Book's Keeper

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know I haven't been around much. I just haven't been writing much more than RP posts these days. I don't exactly know where this idea came from or where it's going to go but I don't have a definitive direction for a lot of my work. I do hope you all enjoy and don't find my Glee characterizations rusty. As always, apologies if I do write Rachel over the top. I tend to do that a lot because I can't stand her. Rating is for later chapters. Characters may be added or deleted depending on where this goes.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos make me smile!

Tick…tick…tick…tock…tock…tock…

The sound of the metronome sitting on his father’s desk with the pendulum swinging back and forth sounded oddly off-beat and off-pace and Blaine felt the distinct urge to grab the swinging pendulum between his fingers and bring it to a stop altogether. Perhaps if he restarted it, the beat would return to normal. But perhaps not. He had long since learned the off-beat rhythm of the timing piece was a figment created in his mind. _You only hear what you want to hear_ , his father had once told him. Perhaps he was right.

Blaine fiddled with his hands, unsure what exactly do with them. As usual, the leather chair in front of Richard Anderson’s desk felt more uncomfortable than he was sure it actually was. The boy couldn’t understand why but every moment that he spent in this study, sitting in this chair, had his nerves responding like firecrackers. As he got older, it never failed. In fact, the feeling intensified. He knew more was expected out of him than perhaps he was willing to give.

Fingers flexed as he splayed his hands on his knees, sitting alone in the empty study and waiting. But only moments later, those same fingers tugged on the bowtie fixed against his throat. Was it too tight? He couldn’t breathe. But that was most likely also due to the fact that his nerves were sky high at the current moment.

The door opened, and Blaine started to turn to greet his father when he heard voices.

“Richard please listen to reason. He’s only a boy!” It was his mother’s voice. Blaine had no idea what she was referring to, but he flexed his fingers again, his hands having lowered to the arms of the chair. Fist, open hand, fist, open hand, fist open hand…

“Blaine stop fiddling,” came his father’s voice. His focus on his hands curling and uncurling had him missing completely whatever had been said to his mother in reply. The door to the study had been shut tight and Richard was making his way to his side of the desk.

Blaine watched his father sit in his desk chair. He eyed his younger son quietly as he played his fingers together.

They both sat in silence for several moments, Blaine now gripping the arms of his chair and Richard still playing his fingers together. He seemed to be contemplating what he was going to say to his son.

Finally, Richard opened a side drawer in the desk on the pretense of retrieving something. Blaine chose that moment to reach for the pendulum on the metronome.

“Drop your hand boy,” Richard said sternly, acutely aware of what his son was intending to do. The teenager lowered his hand, fighting to keep the trembles out of it. The metronome ticked on.

Richard placed a photograph on the desk and slid it across so Blaine could take a look. “Do you know what that is?” he asked.

Blaine leaned over to get a better look. The image was an old black and white photo depicting a leather-bound book. It had no title but a strange pocket in the cover. A pocket it was rumored, to hold a seeing eye. Though Blaine believed none of that stuff. He wasn’t even sure what he did believe.

“That’s the book,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “What does it have to do with me?”

Richard didn’t immediately answer his son. He took a moment to look him over. His wife was right, Blaine was but a child still. Even in his teenage years, he was quite young. But he didn’t have a choice. The older Anderson stuck a finger in his shirt collar and tugged, perhaps the first sign of nervousness Blaine had ever seen his father show.

“This is going to be hard for you to hear,” Richard finally said.

Blaine furrowed his brow, his triangular eyebrows bunching together adorably as he looked at his father in confusion. “What do you mean?” he asked.

There as another long pause. “You’re the keeper,” Richard told him, breaking the awkward silence once more.

“That’s impossible,” Blaine replied, suddenly aware of how much his senses seemed to heighten at his father’s words. “That’s Cooper’s job. He’s the keeper and the only way the book can pass possession is if Cooper’s…”

“Dead,” his father finished for him. The stoic tone of his voice laced the word with finality and Blaine knew. He knew this wasn’t a joke. But he also wasn’t sure how his father knew who the book wanted next. No one had ever gone into details of the Anderson family secret. No one had ever had to. As long as Blaine had no association with the supposed seeing eye book, he had no means or needs to know any further details than the fact that it existed, and it chose its keepers at random.

Suddenly though, Blaine’s mind was not on details. It had sat there for a moment before he had fully registered the effects of his father’s one word. Dead. Cooper was dead. His brother was dead. And maybe it was wrong, but Blaine wasn’t surprised. Cooper wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. His life had been riddled with silly schemes, schemes that eventually put him in danger. He remembered the last time he had spoken to his older brother on the phone. Cooper had sounded terrified. He had tried desperately to keep it out of his voice, but Cooper had never been as a great an actor as he had thought he was. Blaine could read right through him.

“He got in with the wrong crowd, didn’t he?” he finally asked.

Richard again took a moment of silence, regarding his younger son. “In your brother’s case, his death has nothing to do with the book,” was all he said.

Those words reminded Blaine of one crucial point. There was no one in the family who had a bigger target on their back than the keeper of the book. People wanted to get their greasy hands on it. Apparently, it harbored a power that could vanquish the world of all control and the one who abused it would be able to have their way. Visions of the earth’s population marching in chains popped into Blaine’s head at the very idea. A shudder rippled through him. It was the first indication that the nightmares were going to start.

“I don’t want it,” Blaine said, straightening his back and feeling his body go rigid at the very thought.

“You don’t have a choice,” Richard quipped shortly. “I don’t like putting you through this Blaine, but it has chosen you.”

“How do you know that?” Blaine asked.

The older Anderson was again quiet. Blaine could visibly see him swallow over the lump that was clearly forming in his throat. He’d never seen his father so scared before.

“Because your initials appeared on the scroll.”

Blaine stared at his father, having absolutely no idea what he was even referring to. “Scroll?” he asked.

Richard cleared his throat, but it was clear from his expression that it didn’t seem to be helping his lump issue. Innately, Richard Anderson was much better at hiding his fear than his late son had been. He had enough pride to stomp out every visible trace, making it seem as though he feared nothing. And yet, perhaps it was Richard who feared the most. Whether that was true though, remained to be seen.

Blaine knew he and his father did not see eye to eye. Sometimes, they struggled to comprehend one another. They were on such different wave lengths and not just because their lives were on different pages in different chapters. Blaine was everything his father did not want in a son. Cooper had been part of that but the difference between Blaine and Cooper was the former actually did have the talent the other was clearly lacking and bragging about. Blaine wanted to be a performer, or a teacher of musical education. Richard wanted him to be in law or become a doctor. Blaine was gay, attracted to males. Richard had always had his heart set on both of his sons marrying fine young ladies from well to do families such as their own. While Blaine was interested in the prospect of love and dating and wanting that kind of relationship, Cooper had always seemed liked he wanted to be married to a Hollywood camera. Quite frankly, Blaine couldn’t remember his brother ever bringing a girl home.

“Yes, scroll.” His father’s voice pulled the Anderson boy from his musings and he blinked his eyes a few times.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Richard graced his son with a disapproving look. “Focus Blaine,” he said. “For as many years as the Anderson family secret has been the Anderson family secret, there has been a scroll of names. The Anderson family Seeing Scroll they call it.” He paused, an effort to get Blaine to pipe up, but the boy said nothing, and the confusion was still eminent on his face. Richard sighed. “Every time the book is passed, the scroll records the initials of the newest keeper, even if he or she does not know it. The keeper may only be someone who is an Anderson by blood.”

“So then why didn’t it go to you?” Blaine asked.

“Because,” Richard said. The book may only pass to someone in the same family generation or succeeding generations,” he explained.

Blaine felt a sudden sense of irritation that this book would skip his father’s worthiness entirely. Clearly, he was worthier of being the book’s keeper than Cooper had been. The whole family had been perplexed when it was discovered the book had passed on to Cooper. He wasn’t the most responsible person in the family. He wasn’t really responsible at all.

That kind of made it ironic that his death had nothing to do with being the book’s keeper.

“Anyway, now that Cooper is gone, it is your job to look after the book,” Richard continued.

“And wait for my impending death?” Blaine deadpanned.

“Don’t talk like that,” Richard scolded.

Blaine was quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. “Hide it then,” he finally said.

“What?”

“The book. Hide it.” He bit his lip for a moment of thought, determined to work out the elaboration of the idea. “Hide it and don’t tell me where it is.”

“But you’re the keeper. You need to know!"

“It’s safer if I don’t,” Blaine told him. Richard was silent a moment, not at all sure where his son was going with this. “Look, if I don’t know where it is, they can’t find it because I can’t tell them.”

Richard looked slightly outraged. “You’ll be tortured! They’ll torture you for information until you give it to them!”

“But they won’t be able to kill me,” Blaine stated. “If they’re smart enough, they’ll keep me alive, no matter how much torture they put me through. They’ll suspect I’m the only one who can lead them to the book and if I’m dead, I can’t very well tell them where to find it. And if I don’t know where it is, I can’t tell them either. No offense dad, but Cooper would have given it up.”

The older Anderson scoffed. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re likely right. Cooper didn’t want the responsibility. He would have given it up just to get it off his back.”

“And then we all would have been in trouble. I know it’s hard on you, even if you don’t show it. But I’m telling you, if you want to keep me alive a long time while I’m the keeper, we’re better off if I don’t know where it is.”

As good a plan as Blaine thought it was, he didn’t want to admit to his father that he didn’t want the responsibility either. He was still in high school. He wasn’t ready for something like that. His focus needed to be on passing his classes, getting good grades, getting into college. Maybe when he was all grown up and settled with a stable job, he’d have more time to devote to being the keeper, but until then, he needed to be in a place where he didn’t have to worry about it.

Even so, the constant threat of that target on his back was never going to be far from his mind.

“You always were the smart son. But don’t let your brother ever know I said that.”

“How can I now? He’s dead, remember?”

“You could always go and speak to his grave Blaine. That’s how you could let him know. The dead may be dead, but they still listen. They can still hear.”

“That has got to be the most daunting thing you have ever said,” Blaine replied.

Richard stood from the desk and moved to the window behind it. He stood there and stared out of it with his hands clasped behind his back and not saying a word.

Blaine’s attention returned to the metronome, still swinging with it’s off-beat ticks and tocks and he wondered if this time, he could get away with restarting the motion. Again, he reached his fingers out toward the device.

“Don’t even think about it Blaine.”

The boy’s attention flew to his father, who was still looking out the window. Somehow, without even looking at him, Richard knew exactly what Blaine was doing. And again, his hand dropped into his lap.

“What time are you leaving?” Richard asked next, still not tearing his eyes from the window.

“What?”

The man turned to look at his son. “I asked what time are you leaving?” he repeated.

“What do you mean leaving?”

Richard closed his eyes a moment, trying to keep the irritation out of his tone when he spoke again. “To go back to Dalton.”

“Oh!” Blaine had nearly forgotten it was a Sunday night and he was due back at school by curfew. “Probably as soon as you dismiss me sir.” He wanted to get back as early as he possibly could really. He was getting a new roommate that day, a transfer student and Blaine wanted to be around to welcome him.

“Well then,” Richard said. “Better go pack.”

“Am I dismissed then?” he asked.

“For now.”

Blaine stood from the chair and stared for a moment at his father’s back, as though he were expecting him to say something more. But Richard Anderson was done speaking for this little meeting, even if there were many words they still needed to exchange. Let Blaine take everything in. It wouldn’t be long until he was ready to dismiss just being a high school student.

Without an inkling really of what awaited around the corner, Blaine bowed his head with a small word of thanks and made his way out of the study.

“It won’t be that simple Blaine,” Richard said to himself after his son had departed the room. “You think it can be. But it won’t.”

The pain of his words hung in the air, just out of reach. He knew that while Blaine thought he could smooth sail this for now, the curse of the book would not let him.

It never let anyone get on that easily.


End file.
